October 14, 2005 Source: Trinity Western University: http://www.twu.ca/news/view-specific.aspx?newsID=445 Christianity, kitsch and clichés "Kitsch" may be a new word for some people, but it has existed for many years. In the contemporary world it is evident in everything from "Jesus is my homeboy" T-shirts, to the commercializing of Christmas; the sentimentality of what was once sacred and meaningful replaced by cheap reproductions. This September, Trinity Western University art professor and kitsch expert Betty Spackman, released her debut book, A Profound Weakness, Christians and Kitsch, a collection of questions and discoveries from her own artistic journey which grapples with kitsch in the western world. Spackman, who has spent years balancing her love for God and her inner passion for visual communication, says it was the disturbing disconnect between faith and art that first motivated her to publish the book. "The Protestant Church was rejecting artists but was embracing kitsch," says Spackman whose skills as a young artist landed her a national film award and an offer to teach—prior to obtaining an undergraduate degree. "I saw how clichés were choking the life out of the Gospel. I wanted to be an artist of quality and, as a Christian, saw such shabby expressions of the Christian faith that showed none of the wonder and excitement I knew about God. Many of my colleagues felt they had to choose between being an artist and being a part of a church community. Some chose to hide in the Church away from the world of art and some chose to hide in the world of art away from the Church. It was a long, weary battle." But Spackman was spared such a compartmentalized way of seeing. After meeting the late Hans Rookmaaker, an art historian from the Free University of Amsterdam, Spackman found a new perspective early on in her artistic education. She says he was the first Christian she heard talk about art and God in the same sentence with intelligence, sincerity and passion. "I eventually determined that it's not what I do but what God does in me that counts," says Spackman. "I found the freedom to explore and develop the gifts entrusted to me, but it has been a long journey."
Today Spackman is continuing her art practice, teaching art part time at professor at Trinity Western University, (where she helps young artists tackle similar issues) and helping to coordinate the Fort Gallery, an artists' collective in Fort Langley BC. "As Christians we are much too prone to look at the world in black and white," says Spackman. "'Is kitsch good or bad?' or 'Is art good or bad?' are not what we should be asking. We should be asking questions like, 'Does this artistic expression demonstrate honesty and a real search for truth?' 'Who buys it?' 'Who makes it?' 'Why?' Does it make us think and see in new ways?' 'Is it propaganda? Spackman says that to judge what is good or bad art is an arrogantly narrow vision. We may not like what we see, but we should not walk away without understanding why we do not like it. Approaching kitsch in this manner is intellectually critical, but Spackman says it has caused her to be more merciful. In her book Spackman attempts to ask questions that generate discussions beyond the obvious. "I try to discover what is beyond just the comparative issues of good art/bad art or good taste/bad taste," she explains. "These binary paradigms are not enough. Meaning in kitsch and all art is dependent on many contexts including history, culture, religion and gender." "I realized that kitsch has played an important role as a street art that sustains the fragmented faith of generations of Christians who have not been allowed to make art or have it in their Churches," she says. "The dashboard of the car that becomes an altar with a bobble head Jesus and a glow in the dark cross is not necessarily to be laughed at. The reason it is there is just too complex." Spackman hopes that historians, critics, theologians and sociologists will follow up with the questions raised in her book and help eradicate the "visual illiteracy" that she encounters in her Protestant community.
"If scholars would be more involved with popular culture," she says, "and artists more active in the public space, there might not be such a gap in our understanding of the arts in general." University Communications
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